FIML is practical semiotics applied to the psychology of intimate human communication

A “psychological morpheme” can be identified with or stimulated by a “sign” that “indexes” a “library” of “meaning.”

FIML practices interrupts the indexing of the sign before it calls up meaning from the library. This is a technical way to say what FIML practice does.

The terms used above, indicated by quotation marks, can be defined as follows:

A psychological morpheme is the smallest unit of psychological meaning. It is analogous to a morpheme in linguistics, which is the smallest unit of meaning in a language, or the smallest semantic unit in a language.

Signs are the basis of semiotics, which means “the study of signs.” Signs are generally understood to have three aspects to them: 1) the sign itself; 2) what the sign refers to; and 3) how it is interpreted.

An index is a sign or a part of a sign that indicates something else. An index in a library may refer to “Greek history” or a similar broad subject. When a sign is a psychological index it refers to a library of thoughts and feelings held in an individual’s mind. Your psychological indexes will be different from mine.

The meaning of an indexical psychological sign is the library of thoughts and feelings that it refers to.

Thus, using technical language, we can say as we did above that: A “psychological morpheme” can be identified with or stimulated by a “sign” that “indexes” a “library” of “meaning.”

That is a very dry statement. The value of that statement lies in this—during interpersonal communication, people very often misidentify signs or index them incorrectly. Therefore they call up libraries of meaning that do not apply to what was actually said (or signed) by the other person.

It is very common that a listener in an interpersonal communication will perceive a psychological sign as indexing a library of meaning that the speaker did not intend.

FIML stops this mistake as it starts to happen. When one partner believes they have perceived a sign that is identified with, or stimulates, a psychological morpheme in them, rather than call up the library that seems to have been indexed by that sign, they instead stop the conversation and ask their partner what they meant by the sign.

It is rare that the speaker meant to stimulate the psychological morpheme the listener thought they had. By doing FIML, the listener stops the complex indexing of that morpheme. By stopping indexing mistakes as they happen, partners will discover a level of freedom and mutual enjoyment that is unlike any other. When enough indexing mistakes are stopped, partners will discover that their “interpersonality” has changed for the better, as have their individual “personalities.” This happens because our senses of who we are are deeply dependent on our relations with other people. When the quality of your relationship with your partner is greatly upgraded, both of you will experience upgrades in many other areas of your lives.

In the context outlined above, we can say that FIML is practical semiotics applied to the psychology of intimate human communication.